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Cancers Jul 2023LAPC is associated with a poor prognosis and requires a multimodal treatment approach. However, the role of radiation therapy in LAPC treatment remains controversial.... (Review)
Review
UNLABELLED
LAPC is associated with a poor prognosis and requires a multimodal treatment approach. However, the role of radiation therapy in LAPC treatment remains controversial. This systematic review aimed to explore the role of proton and photon therapy, with varying radiation techniques and fractionation, in treatment outcomes and their respective toxicity profiles.
METHODS
Clinical studies published from 2012 to 2022 were systematically reviewed using PubMed, MEDLINE (via PubMed) and Cochrane databases. Different radiotherapy-related data were extracted and analyzed.
RESULTS
A total of 31 studies matched the inclusion criteria. Acute toxicity was less remarkable in stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) compared to conventionally fractionated radiotherapy (CFRT), while in proton beam therapy (PBT) grade 3 or higher acute toxicity was observed more commonly with doses of 67.5 Gy (RBE) or higher. Late toxicity was not reported in most studies; therefore, comparison between groups was not possible. The range of median overall survival (OS) for the CFRT and SBRT groups was 9.3-22.9 months and 8.5-20 months, respectively. For the PBT group, the range of median OS was 18.4-22.3 months.
CONCLUSION
CFRT and SBRT showed comparable survival outcomes with a more favorable acute toxicity profile for SBRT. PBT is a promising new treatment modality; however, additional clinical studies are needed to support its efficacy and safety.
PubMed: 37568587
DOI: 10.3390/cancers15153771 -
World Journal of Gastrointestinal... Jul 2023Presence of liver metastatic disease in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), either synchronous or metachronous after pancreatic resection, is a terminal diagnosis...
BACKGROUND
Presence of liver metastatic disease in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), either synchronous or metachronous after pancreatic resection, is a terminal diagnosis that warrants management with palliative intent as per all international practice guidelines. However, there is an increasing interest on any potential value of surgical treatment of isolated oligometastatic disease in selected cases.
AIM
To present the published evidence on surgical management of PDAC liver metastases, synchronous and metachronous, and compare the outcomes of these treatments to the current standard of care.
METHODS
A systematic review was performed in line with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses guidelines to compare the outcomes of both synchronous and metachronous liver metastases resection to standard care.
RESULTS
356 studies were identified, 31 studies underwent full-text review and of these 10 were suitable for inclusion. When synchronous resection of liver metastases was compared to standard care, most studies did not demonstrate a survival benefit with the exception of one study that utilised neoadjuvant treatment. However, resection of metachronous disease appeared to confer a survival advantage when compared to treatment with chemotherapy alone.
CONCLUSION
A survival benefit may exist in resection of selected cases of metachronous liver oligometastatic PDAC disease, after disease biology has been tested with time and systemic treatment. Any survival benefit is less clear in synchronous cases; however an approach with neoadjuvant treatment and consideration of resection in some selected cases may confer some benefit. Future studies should focus on pathways for selection of cases that may benefit from an aggressive approach.
PubMed: 37555114
DOI: 10.4240/wjgs.v15.i7.1512 -
Metabolites Jul 2023Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is one of the deadliest cancers, with five-year survival rates around 10%. The only curative option remains complete surgical... (Review)
Review
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is one of the deadliest cancers, with five-year survival rates around 10%. The only curative option remains complete surgical resection, but due to the delay in diagnosis, less than 20% of patients are eligible for surgery. Therefore, discovering diagnostic biomarkers for early detection is crucial for improving clinical outcomes. Metabolomics has become a powerful technology for biomarker discovery, and several metabolomic-based panels have been proposed for PDAC diagnosis, but these advances have not yet been translated into the clinic. Therefore, this review focused on summarizing metabolites identified for the early diagnosis of PDAC in the last five years. Bibliographic searches were performed in the PubMed, Scopus and WOS databases, using the terms "Biomarkers, Tumor", "Pancreatic Neoplasms", "Early Diagnosis", "Metabolomics" and "Lipidome" (January 2018-March 2023), and resulted in the selection of fourteen original studies that compared PDAC patients with subjects with other pancreatic diseases. These investigations showed amino acid and lipid metabolic pathways as the most commonly altered, reflecting their potential for biomarker research. Furthermore, other relevant metabolites such as glucose and lactate were detected in the pancreas tissue and body fluids from PDAC patients. Our results suggest that the use of metabolomics remains a robust approach to improve the early diagnosis of PDAC. However, these studies showed heterogeneity with respect to the metabolomics techniques used and further studies will be needed to validate the clinical utility of these biomarkers.
PubMed: 37512579
DOI: 10.3390/metabo13070872 -
Current Oncology (Toronto, Ont.) Jul 2023Pancreatic cancer is the seventh leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide, accounting for 4.7% of all cancer deaths, and is expected to climb significantly over the next... (Review)
Review
Pancreatic cancer is the seventh leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide, accounting for 4.7% of all cancer deaths, and is expected to climb significantly over the next decade. The purpose of this systematic review and guidance document was to synthesize the evidence surrounding the role of adjuvant treatment (chemotherapy and chemoradiation therapy [CRT], and stereotactic body radiation therapy [SBRT]) in resected pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). Systematic literature searches of MEDLINE, EMBASE, and 11 guideline databases were conducted. Both direct and indirect comparisons indicate adjuvant chemotherapy offers a survival advantage over surgery alone. The optimal regimens recommended are mFOLFIRINOX with alternative options of gemcitabine plus capecitabine, gemcitabine alone, or S-1 (which is not available in North America). Trials comparing a CRT strategy to modern chemotherapy regimens are lacking. However, current evidence demonstrates that the addition of CRT to chemotherapy does not result in a survival advantage over chemotherapy alone and is therefore not recommended. Trials evaluating SBRT in PDAC are also lacking. SBRT should only be used within a clinical trial or multi-institutional registry.
Topics: Humans; Deoxycytidine; Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols; Carcinoma, Pancreatic Ductal; Pancreatic Neoplasms; Chemotherapy, Adjuvant
PubMed: 37504342
DOI: 10.3390/curroncol30070482 -
Advances in Clinical and Experimental... Aug 2023Which systemic therapy should be administered following sorafenib failure for patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is still a debated issue in clinical... (Meta-Analysis)
Meta-Analysis
Which systemic therapy should be administered following sorafenib failure for patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is still a debated issue in clinical practice. This study aimed to compare regorafenib with nivolumab after sorafenib failure in patients with HCC. MEDLINE via PubMed, Scopus and Embase databases were searched for studies published until December 2021. The risk of bias (RoB) was evaluated using the Cochrane Collaboration tool for assessing risk of bias in randomized trials. From a total of 2120 articles, 3 papers were included in this meta-analysis. We found a statistically significant difference in the patient's objective response rate between the regorafenib and nivolumab groups (odds ratio (OR): 0.296, 95% confidence interval (95% CI): 0.161-0.544, p = 0.000). A statistically significant difference between regorafenib and nivolumab was not found for disease control rate after sorafenib failure in patients with advanced HCC (OR: 1.111, 95% CI: 0.793-1.557, p = 0.541) nor the number of progressive disease events (OR: 0.972, 95% CI: 0.693-1.362, p = 0.867). Overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) were not calculable. The heterogeneity of the included data was low. Nivolumab monotherapy appears superior to regorafenib after sorafenib failure in patients with advanced HCC.
Topics: Humans; Carcinoma, Hepatocellular; Sorafenib; Liver Neoplasms; Nivolumab
PubMed: 37140014
DOI: 10.17219/acem/158488